Last Words

"Well, text or call if you need anything." 

He replied with a thumb up. 

The next morning, I messaged, "How are you today?" but he never saw it.  His last words were in a handwritten note of which I keep a photo in my phone, which is not at all smart as I forget it is there. Whenever I spend time clearing excess photos, it jumps out at me like a monster, frightening me and bringing darkness.  Also, my phone could break.

I have already written a blog about the things I would have said if I had known, but today I became fixated on the last words we say to people at the end of conversations.  We fight with our spouse and passive aggressively text "ttyl" or say "whatever" and walk away.  Or we say even worse things with no passivity, only aggression.  We get so frustrated with our children that we yell "go to your room!" then marinate in our anger for hours.  We have coworkers that we like tremendously but treat badly because we are so stressed with work and deadlines.  We forget to say "I forgive you", "Hey, you did a good job today", or a simple "thank you."

I'm not saying every conversation has to end with "I love you" and this echoes a Garth Brooks song, but what if there isn't a tomorrow?  What would you want your last words to be, either spoken by you or spoken to you?

Although "I love you" would have been better, I am thankful the last words I sent to him were to reach out to me.